I know myself well enough to realize that I can’t just have one or two drinks and call it a night like the “sophisticated” drinkers you see having one glass of wine at dinner. Once I have a drink, I feel like I can drink like I used to when I was a teenager. I tend to consume way too much and end up hugging the toilet seat in the morning, wishing I never drank in the first place and promising myself to never drink again. Because of this, I try to stay away from alcohol altogether; it has never been a friend to me or anyone close to me.
Like a never-ending rerun, Jeremy ended up moving back to the city with me and River after the Christmas break to try to reconcile. We both thought it would be a good idea for him to get out of the same old scene. We both thought that maybe we needed a geographical cure. We did good for a while. Jeremy found a full-time job after sucking up his pride and opting to work at a gas station down the road from our apartment until he could find a better paying job. I think it was a very humbling experience for him, and I did give him credit for trying. He went from making five times the amount of money he was making in Yellowknife at the diamond mines to pumping gas for rich folks, driving the fancy cars he could only dream of owning one day.
Jeremy was a good father to River, when he was around. River had cut his own hair one night while he was being baby-sat. I had to shave his entire head so that his hair could grow back evenly, and Jeremy shaved his head too so that they could have the same haircut.
Shortly after River’s third birthday, I got pregnant with Brooke. River didn’t know it yet, but his little life was about to change; he was going to be a big brother.
***
FIVE MONTHS INTO MY PREGNANCY, Jeremy returned to Yellowknife for work. He had found a better-paying job back up at the mine farther north. I was left to pack up our apartment with River by my side and a growing belly. I didn’t enrol in my second year at the college because I was due to have the baby in the middle of the school year. When River and I arrived in Yellowknife, I heard the rumours that I didn’t want to hear. Jeremy had been fooling around on me, and it broke my heart. When the time came for Brooke to come into the world I did not allow Jeremy to come to the hospital to see her because I was so angry at him for what he had done.
Brooke was born in the coldest month of the year, and her arrival made me complete. Her birthstone was a garnet, which reminded me of the ring that Jeremy had bought me when we first started out on our journey together. It was a symbol of our time together and how she was so perfect and meant to be, no matter what life threw at us.
When River came to the hospital to meet little Brooke for the first time, he didn’t want to come into the room. He stood around the corner of the hospital room door while everyone came in to visit and meet the new baby. He would peek in every couple of minutes, with one eye on Brooke. But every time someone saw his little, round face, he would quickly hide. He wasn’t sure what to think of her yet and had to scope the situation out first. When he finally did come into the room, he sat in the corner and quietly coloured a picture, looking up whenever someone made a fuss over the baby. The next day, he got a bit closer to have a look at this tiny mirror image of himself and handed Brooke the same picture that he was busy drawing the day before. That was his gesture of love, his offering. By the time Brooke and I were able to leave the hospital, River was holding his baby sister, dressing her and even helping to change her diapers.
Being a young, single mother with one wild little boy and a baby that cried all the time was very difficult. When Brooke cried, it was amplified. Her cry sent a ping right through me. This must be the karma that I was due from putting my mom through so much agony when I was a baby.
River was a handful to begin with, but he started acting out a lot after his sister was born. He would do very odd things to get my attention. He purposely peed in a small, toy teacup and said with his cute little baby voice, “Here mom, I made this especially for you.” I thought it was a game of pretend and he had gotten some water from the tap, so I played along and took a sip only to realize that it was pee. It took all my patience not to get angry at him, but I wondered why he would do such a thing while smiling at me and looking so sweet. He had been fully potty-trained for years. The last straw was when he purposely peed on the beautiful, white, rabbit-fur moccasins that my grandma had made me and stained them yellow. That was the first time I yelled at River.
Times were tough, and since I wasn’t working, I was barely making ends meet. I had been taking a few online university courses at the time, and I filled in for a receptionist on maternity leave, which provided me with some extra income but also made it difficult to juggle my responsibilities as a mother. I often did my course work at night in between Brooke’s feeding times and relied on friends and family to help me with the kids so that I could write my exams.
Jeremy really wanted to see his daughter, so a few months after she was born, I gave in and let him visit. He pulled up to our house in a big semi-truck that he was driving for his new job, but he didn’t think about how he was going to get out of the tight parking space that he drove into and it took him two hours to back out. Jeremy always knew how to make me laugh and forget why I was ever mad.
We all moved into a trailer together shorty after, and Jeremy and I shared the costs of paying market rent, helping to pay off our landlord’s mortgage. Jeremy’s mom owned a nice, big house in a historic part of town on the waterfront. Jeremy had grown up in the house and his mother had been renting it out. Jeremy asked his mom if we could move into the house — it only made sense — so she let us rent the house at a decent price.
The house was huge. I had never lived in a big house before and it took a lot of getting used to, especially keeping up with the housework. It had five bedrooms, a big basement, and a nice deck with beautiful views of the lake. I recognized the house as soon as I stepped inside; I had dreamt of the house before ever seeing it. Not as in it being my dream house — I had specifically had recurring dreams of the house.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed that my dreams often come true months, sometimes years, after I’ve dreamt them. I like to think that it’s the universe telling me that I’m on the right track in life, sort of like a premonition or a déjà vu. In my dream of the house, I saw myself standing in the basement long before I moved into it. Each time I dreamt of the house I would go one step further into the basement, and I would eventually be alone in the dark with only a small bit of dusty light beaming through a window in the corner.
Despite this premonition, things were going well, for once. I worked from home and had a spa set up in the basement. Even though I knew it wasn’t my calling, it was money that we needed. Business was good. I was starting to get some regulars lined up and, I didn’t love what I did, but at least I was able to work from home while the kids were small, which I did love.
My papa ended up moving in with us. He had long quit his bootlegging business and was having a hard time making ends meet. He was done with being fined one too many times. He had his own room in the house, and he would constantly complain that it was too cold and have five portable heaters running all at once — a fire hazard waiting to happen. Right next to the heaters sat his spittoon can. Since he wasn’t allowed to smoke in the house, he chewed tobacco instead.
Even though he lived with us, my papa would still go visit my grandma every day. She would cook him dinner and he would come home usually after midnight or whenever he started to get tired, sometimes two or three in the morning. In the mornings, he would pick my grandma up in his fancy town car and she would dot her bright, rouge lipstick on her cheeks. They would drive around town for hours, always ending up parking their car outside of the Gold Range. This was their routine, day and night, for as long as I can remember, and when my papa moved in with me, it didn’t change much. He was never home, except to sleep. I would hear him coming in through the back door at night so as not to wake anyone.
He would forget
that there was no smoking allowed in the house, and one day while I was upstairs, I could smell the faint smell of a cigarette. So, I quickly made my way down the steep stairs leading to the main floor to lecture him about smoking in the house again. “Papa, are you smoking in the house?” I was in a rush because I had to get set up for work. I had a coffee in my hand, and when I got less than half way down the stairs, my feet slipped out from under me. My coffee went flying as I hit every single stair on the way down.
When I reached the bottom, I thought I had broken my back. Jeremy and my papa stood over me, trying to help me up while I lay there wriggling and crying. I had fractured my tail bone. It put me out for a few weeks, so I needed Jeremy to help me with the kids. But he had made plans to go out of town on a hockey tournament that day and wouldn’t have cancelled it for the world.
***
THE SPA WAS STEADY BUT not terribly busy and, apart from being a mom, I needed a hobby. My kids were my entire world and I loved them more than anything, but I also needed time for myself. I made it a point to discover what it was that I liked to do, what made me truly happy, apart from my family. I wanted to find my passion.
Growing up, I took the time to write in a daily journal. I never did hang on to my journals. I usually ended up burning them or tearing them up as a symbol of healing myself from the past and moving onto the next chapter of my life. I would often write poetry or just rhyme random thoughts and write about the things I was going through at the time, but I never thought to turn my writing into art.
I didn’t know the first thing about how to play an instrument, but I knew how to put together the structure of a song. Songwriting came naturally once I got started. I think the sorrow in my songs came from the buildup of emotions that I had kept inside of me, and they flowed out of me. I was creating harmony instead of indulging in something destructive. The words soothed my soul. I had countless songs presenting themselves to me, just waiting to come alive.
I was determined to learn how to play guitar, to start creating my own sound. Jeremy bought me a guitar and I started to teach myself how to play at night, while the kids were sleeping. I wanted to go into music when I was younger, but it wasn’t something that we could afford. My mom made the effort to put me into piano lessons once, but it was no more than a few lessons, not enough to learn the basics. On the guitar, I taught myself the three basic chords that I needed to string a song together. I wasn’t the greatest singer in the world, but I knew that I had some good material for songwriting, so I put my words to a melody. I started branching out to other musicians around town and, before I knew it, I was welcomed into the local music scene.
I would go to open mic sessions around town where I would expose my soul to small audiences that were respectful and patient, knowing that I was just starting out. Some nights I would play better than other nights, but I didn’t care. I played for free and it was a way for me to gain some control of my life, get out of the house and socialize with other artists. I applied for a grant to produce my own album, since I had written enough songs to do a full-length set. After a year in the studio, recording almost every night, we managed to put together a full-length recording. It was such an arduous process. At the end of the day, I wasn’t happy enough with it to release it. To ask people to pay for my less-than-quality music didn’t seem right, so I wrapped it up with nothing to show for it except some stage experience, which at least got me over my fear of speaking in front of crowds.
I gave up trying to be a musician, but I promised myself that, when my kids got older and my life slowed down a bit, I would pick up the guitar again because my love for creating music would never fade. It’s just another avenue to tell a story in my own words. I’m sure I drove my papa crazy, learning how to play guitar every night above his bedroom. The kids would plug their ears whenever I belted out a tune, but I didn’t care. It was something that was for me. It was a way of finding my own identity amid being a mother, a caregiver and a wife — or, playing the part of what I thought a wife was supposed to be.
Chapter 10
FOR THE FIRST TIME, JEREMY AND I had a consistent go of things without breaking up or fighting. We even started talking about marriage. After all, we had been together, off and on, for almost ten years. My grandparents weren’t getting any younger, and I wanted them to see us get married. I started dropping hints to Jeremy.
I ignored every piece of advice that anyone ever gave me. Friends and family warned me not to get married to try to fix a relationship. Deep down, I knew they were right. I have such a strong intuition, but what good is that if you completely ignore it. I was good at ignoring red flags and obvious problems, because I didn’t want to accept that I couldn’t have a happy family with the father of my children. I was too proud to admit that I had grown up and left a broken home only to find myself back in the same situation. I wanted to have a normal family — or be some version of what I thought normal was supposed to be.
Jeremy got a discount on a small diamond ring from working at the mine. The ring he chose was very inexpensive, but it was all we could afford at the time. I didn’t mind. It was discounted because it had a huge flaw in it that you could see with the naked eye. You didn’t even need a microscope to see that there was a large black sliver smack dab in the middle of the diamond. It was a perfect reflection of our relationship.
When Jeremy proposed, it was a different kind of memorable. Jeremy was not a romantic person; even the word “romantic” made him want to throw up. He told me he was going to propose over dinner that night and I thought it would be sweet having the kids with us when he popped the big question. We were supposed to go out for a nice family dinner at a fancy restaurant, but we didn’t make reservations in time. So, we opted for a fast food restaurant at the last minute. I anticipated him pulling the ring out at any moment, and I was bracing myself the entire dinner. But he never did ask.
When we walked into the house after dinner, Brooke had to go to the washroom. She was being potty-trained at the time and had just missed the potty and peed all over the bathroom floor. While I was in the washroom, cleaning up the mess and down on all fours, Jeremy thought to propose. I was coming out of the washroom with the potty in my hands, the kids were running around the house screaming and Jeremy was standing in front of me with the ring in his hand. It was all over in a matter of seconds and wasn’t as big of a deal as I expected it be. There were no violins playing in the background, no happy tears, no opportunity to leave him hanging while he was down on his hands and knees, wondering if I would say yes. I don’t think he even asked me at all; he just nonchalantly put the ring on my hand. As disappointed as I was, I still said yes, and life went on. I got the kids ready for bed and he called his cousin up on the phone, half-jokingly saying, “Hey buddy, well my life is now officially over,” while channel-surfing the television with his feet up on the coffee table.
***
JEREMY AND I INVITED EVERYONE we knew to our wedding. It was the wedding of the decade. Every single small-town character showed up and then some. We didn’t have much money, so we had to be creative. I had my dress custom-made by a Columbian seamstress that couldn’t speak much English, but she was affordable, and I heard that she had created gorgeous, one-of-a-kind pieces for a few other brides in town. She sized me a few months before the wedding, and I told her that I wanted the dress to hang a bit off my shoulders to cover my tattoo.
I thought we could cut costs for the wedding by serving traditional food instead of paying for catering, but Jeremy’s mother insisted on paying for the food, so I didn’t argue. Instead, we cut costs in other ways. I made the invitations myself and included a beautiful quote on the perseverance of love, as I thought our relationship to be the epitome of persistence, if anything.
We decided to get married outside of town at a little tourist area that was fully set up with teepees. It was all coming together. I had five bridesmaids and Jeremy had five groomsmen. My dad
was even coming into town for the wedding, which was quite a surprise. Up until then, he had never met River and Brooke. Jeremy and his groomsmen all had their tuxes fitted and ordered, and my bridesmaids were happy with their beautiful, flowy, fuchsia-coloured dresses. I, on the other hand, was still waiting for my dress and getting anxious. I called the seamstress a few days before the wedding and found out that she had her dates mixed up and hadn’t worked on it at all, which made her rushed when she was doing the final touches on the dress. When I tried it on the night before the wedding, it was a little bit too big, but it would have to do.
On the morning of the wedding, the bridesmaids and I got ready at the house. We did our hair and makeup while treating ourselves with expensive champagne and orange juice. Jeremy and his groomsmen were at the hotel room that was reserved for us after the wedding. Jeremy handed out pocket knives to his groomsmen while they pounded back the whiskey.
Catherine & her daughter on the day of her wedding
It was a beautiful, sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. My dad was making up for lost time getting to know his grandkids, and he was happy to be a part of my big day. He had his old, clunky camera hanging around his neck and was taking a million pictures with it. They would never be developed though, because the whole time he had forgotten to put a roll of film in it.
My bridesmaids and I stood on the edge of the patio and had our pictures taken professionally, with a beautiful view of the lake in the background. We must have stirred the sleeping hornets underneath the patio with our commotion, because they started buzzing around us as we screamed, terrified they’d sting us up our dresses. My dad, the hero, took it upon himself to take care of it. Looking back, I should have listened to the signs.
Northern Wildflower Page 10